


A Girl In The War

by Burning_Nightingale



Category: Hadestown (Musical)
Genre: Angst, Background Relationships, Bittersweet Ending, Gangs, Gen, Revolution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-12
Updated: 2013-12-12
Packaged: 2018-01-04 11:32:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1080525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Burning_Nightingale/pseuds/Burning_Nightingale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>One girl started a fire and watched the others fan the flames.</i>
</p>
<p>Eurydice wasn’t saved by Orpheus, so she saves herself. This is the story of revolution in Hadestown.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Girl In The War

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Luzula](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luzula/gifts).



> I was kind of nervous about filling the idea of revolution my recip provided, but in the end I went for it anyway. I hope this does it some small amount of justice! 
> 
> I added the background characters mainly through a mix of what little I remembered of Greek mythology and a look through Wikipedia, then twisted them to my purposes xD Hopefully they're not too weird! Title from the song of the same name by Josh Ritter. 
> 
> Happy Yuletide!

The day is dark and overcast, the sky black, when Eurydice comes to Hadestown. 

_There was no work back in that place_ , she tells herself sternly, as she hesitates before the forbidding vista of small, bunched up shacks and narrow streets ahead. _No work and nothing to be done but starve._

_But what is starvation when compared to love_? asks a voice she quickly buries and pushes away. She's here now and there ain't no turning back. 

"They tell me there's work to be found here," she tells the woman at the one bar in town, who looks at her with something akin to sadness. 

"Work, sure. Building the Wall that's never finished. Where you come from, sugar?" 

"Outta town," Eurydice says absently, and the barmaid laughs. 

"That's the only place anyone ever comes from," she explains when Eurydice asks. 

"I ain't got no place to live," Eurydice says a little later, when the crowd – what little there was – has died down and the barmaid's wiping glasses. 

"Husband run out on ya?" she asks.

Eurydice looks down, away. "Somethin' like that." 

"I know a girl'll put you up," the barmaid says.

/ 

No one can explain the sky, which never seems to change from grey or black.

"You go down the railroad track and somehow you end up here," says Alecto, the woman she shares a house with. "And once you here, you don't leave. Nobody leaves." 

There's work, sure. If you want to spend your days grubbing in the mud, you can build the Wall. The Wall that's never finished, the Wall that never ends. Even women can work on the Wall. Eurydice takes her place the first day and gets to work.

A week later she realizes that just having work doesn't make a town a paradise. 

The streets are dark and most of the time they're empty. People walk quick if they have to walk somewhere at all. Most of the time people seem to spend in their homes, doing almost nothing at all, just talking about the old days and what is was like to live 'up there'. They all refer to other places as ‘up’, the places back up the railroad track; maybe it's a misplaced sense of aspiration. Reach up. Reach for your dreams.

No one seems to have dreams in this place.

Eurydice wishes for the sun. Stares out her window and longs for it, for the blue sky and the changing faces of clouds, for the soft breezes and light summer rains, for the smells of damp earth and green, growing things. All they have here is black sky, no stars. The wind whistles and cuts, the rain pours from the heavens like a river and creeps through any gap it can find, and the ground is hard rock and dust. The only thing that grows is an increasing lethargy, a tiredness that sinks deep into the bones. Eurydice comes home from a day under the Wall's shadow and sometimes she can fall into bed without even having any dinner. The only thing to eat is gruel and a scant few vegetables – sometimes, not often, and they come from who knows where – so she's not missing out on much. 

She makes few friends. The climate doesn't seem to support small talk, get togethers, casual meetings on the street. She knows Alecto, her housemate, Tisiphone, the barmaid, and is eventually introduced to Megaera, who is surly and unemployed because, as Tisiphone says, 'She too goddamn grumpy and stubborn to get a job, and too proud to dirty her hands on the Wall'. It's only when Megaera is introduced that she finds out all three are sisters. Megaera may be the most belligerent, but all of them have fiery dispositions and quick tempers. They seem to have taken to her, but Eurydice makes sure to tread carefully. She wouldn't want to get on their bad sides. 

One evening she finds herself by the window again, gazing upward into black nothingness, trying to will stars into existence with the very force of her determination. She's so concentrated she almost doesn't hear Alecto call her name. 

"It's startin’, down in Elysium," she says excitedly. That’s the name of the bar, Eurydice remembers, Tisiphone's place of work. "Hurry and get your coat, or we'll miss it."

"Miss what?" Eurydice asks, but Alecto ignores her, or simply doesn't hear her. This is the first time Eurydice has ever been able to describe her as 'excited', though, so she grabs her coat and follows her down the street. 

Elysium is packed, fuller than she's ever seen it. People are even buying more than one or two drinks; there are people _smiling_. It's so new and yet so familiar, an echo of long ago, so disorientating that Eurydice barely knows what to do with herself. "What's all the fuss?" she asks Alecto quietly. 

Alecto is about to answer before she spots something and points. "Her," is all she says. 

Eurydice looks. The crowd parts for a woman she's never seen before, all glowing skin and slinky black dress, her head haloed by lustrous dark red hair. After so long of grey and drab people, of ragged patched clothing, this woman appears like an illusion, a dream just out of her reach. She would think her a figment of her imagination if everyone else in the room wasn't staring at her as well. 

"Looking good Harry," she says to a guy at the front of the crowd, her smile teasing. He blushes and mutters something, and she moves on. 

“Strike me up a tune, honey,” she says, waving at the guy by the piano. He starts up with a jazzy number, and the gorgeous woman saunters through the crowd, paying special attention to one or two here and there.

Eurydice doesn’t believe she’ll stop in front of them, but she does. She gives Alecto a big smile, then her eyes widen slightly as they pass over her. “I heard you got a new housemate, Alecto darling,” she smiles slowly. “Surely I shoulda been introduced by now?”

“She’s a busy gal, milady,” Alecto says with a grin and a wink.

“I guess she is.” The woman gives Eurydice a look that isn’t hostile, but doesn’t feel overly friendly either. “You got a name, sugar?”

“Eurydice.” Her voice, surprisingly, doesn’t falter. Maybe she’s finally becoming able to speak to strangers? _That would be a fine thing_.

“Eurydice.” The stranger plays it over her tongue, and looks considering. “I expect you know already, but my name’s Persephone.”

Eurydice nods her head. “Nice to meet cha.”

Persephone nods, but she seems to already have lost interest. She moves on, glowing and ethereal, through the crowd. And when she’s made a round of the bar she slinks over to the piano and leans against it, and three women come to stand with her; one young and pretty, one old and crooked, and one somewhere in between. The audience gathers, and it seems the whole crowd hold their breath as the music plays.

The _things_ she sings of…Eurydice can almost see them, can almost feel the wind on her face. “How long’s it been since you saw the sky?” Persephone croons, her voice all whiskey and velvet, and Eurydice’s eyes are blinded by the blue. Coming back down to earth, after that, leaves a foul taste in her mouth.

She asks Alecto about the strange and alluring woman when they get home. “Hades’ wife,” Alecto says, and Eurydice almost falls out of her seat.

“Hades’ _wife_? What’s she doing down here, singing?”

“What the boss don’t know,” Alecto quotes with a smile. “There’s gotta be something to hope for in this town, even if it’s only a song or two. Boss knows that. Can’t let people get too starved of hope, or something might…happen.” Alecto’s smile is a slit in her face, and she looks more angry than happy. Eurydice bids her a swift goodnight and retreats to her room, the strains of Persephone’s melody playing over and over in her head.

/

It hurts, it does, to have come so close and now to be so far. The doorway was so close. And yet, somehow she can’t fault Orpheus for looking behind; after all, how far does she trust Hades? Might she not have done the same?

When they cross paths – because occasionally, just occasionally, they do – she feels Persephone’s eyes on her, full of sadness. She knows Persephone wanted her to be free. She doesn’t understand how a woman like her is married to a man like _him_ – but then, most women don’t have the luxury of choice.

Not everything is the same, though. It’s faint, it’s hidden, but the rumours of dissent still rumble. She sees people talking on street corners, spots the muted light of lamps with many people gathered around through the fuzziness of drawn curtains. Whispers are spreading in Hadestown.

They still work on the Wall, but the work is slower, more grudging now. And one night at the very end of a long shift Eurydice looks up and there, just there above the lip of the Wall, one tiny star shines out bright. She stands and stares, her eyes feasting on the sight. Never has anything looked more beautiful.

As the week turns, it comes time again for Persephone’s night at the bar; everyone turns up and so does she, but her normal glowing, funky, effervescent aura is distinctly missing.

“Weighted down by sorrow,” she says of herself. “I’m sorry, my darlings, I just can’t sing tonight. I don’t have the heart for it.”

Disappointment weighs heavy in Eurydice’s gut; disappointment and _anger_ , because she knows who’s to blame, the reason why Persephone feels so down. The people are disappointed but sympathetic, Tisiphone offers a free drink at the bar, the crowd disperses a little. Some gather around their downcast Lady of the Underground as she sits at the bar, offering comfort. Everything seems about to move on with no more mention of their weekly ritual. None of them, not one, seem to share Eurydice’s seething belligerence.

So she shares it with them.

She jumps up on a table, and people look. People stare. She draws their eyes and feels a hint of that restlessness that’s been brewing lately, murmurs, so she presses on. “Does anyone have heart for singing?” she asks the crowd, her voice ringing loud in the silence. “How can we sing as-” she chokes a little, heart caught in her throat, but continues, “as beautifully as a man who sang for _love_ , when all we sing of, really, is despair?”

There are mutters, someone agrees at the back of the room. Eurydice throws a hand up and makes a fist. “Only when we sing of freedom will we sing again!” she shouts, and doesn’t expect an answer.

But she gets one. Someone yells “Yeah!” at the back of the room and then everyone’s yelling, people are stamping their feet, people are arguing, shouting. It’s more life than she’s ever seen in Hadestown. More life than she’d thought was possible here.

She feels eyes heavy upon her, and lifts her gaze to meet Persephone’s, burning through her from the back of the room. She still perches on a bar stool, tense, on-edge, an untouched drink in one hand. Staring straight at her as if _really_ seeing her for the first time.

And for the first time Eurydice stares straight back, unflinching. And when Persephone drops her gaze and rises to leave, Eurydice can’t help but wonder whose side she’s really on.

/

Alecto does the hard work; she gathers people together, the brave ones, the real dissenters. She gives Eurydice a time and a place.

The building is just another of the small tumbledown dwellings that line the street, almost indistinguishable from any other in the town. She goes round the side and knocks on the back door, which cracks open a little, an eye peering out. As soon as she’s spotted the door is thrown wider. “Here she is, the rabble-rouser,” the woman on the other side of the door smiles. She looks dangerous, all sharp angles and dark eyes, but her tone is affectionate. She stands back and lets Eurydice pass.

Inside, a small group has gathered around the table. “Don’t tease her, Hecate,” says a woman sitting at the head of the table, who looks even more dangerous than the first. Perhaps the fact that she’s casually sharpening a knife has something to do with the effect. She’s flanked by two men, one thick-set and burly, the other whiplash thin with shaking hands.

Hecate sits on the left side of the table and indicates a seat, which Eurydice takes warily. She’d be more comfortable sitting on the other side of the table with Alecto, but Tisiphone and Megaera have taken the other two seats on that side. Alecto smiles at her, though, which makes her feel a little less nervous. “You probably don’t know anyone,” she says, “So, let me introduce Eris, leader of the Keres.” Eris looks up from her knife for a moment to make a lazy gesture of acknowledgement with one hand. “And these two are Thanatos and Hypnos,” Alecto adds, motioning first to the burly guy and then the thin one. They favour her with nothing more than a nod. “And Hecate here is our…schoolteacher,” Alecto finishes, the significant pause before the last word saying everything Eurydice needs to know about the woman sitting next to her. “We’re just waiting for Sisyphus, and then we’ll begin.”

No sooner has she finished than the door opens again, revealing a harried looking man in a long, weather beaten coat. “You’re late,” Megaera snaps.

“There’s a reason for that,” he says, not stepping over the threshold. “One I don’t think most of you will like.” With that he steps forward and shrugs off his coat, revealing dirty work clothes hanging off a thin body.

This is less preoccupying than the man who follows him through the door. Eurydice sees Alecto’s lips tighten almost imperceptibly. “Hermes,” she says, and not in a tone of welcome. “I wasn’t aware I’d invited you.”

“You know me, Alecto,” the man says breezily, unwrapping a long scarf from around his neck and slumping almost gracefully into the chair at the end of the table. “I have my ways of finding out what’s going on.”

“So it would seem,” Alecto says tightly, and Eurydice can tell by her frown that she’s not at all happy. She wonders who this Hermes character is, and what’s between him and her housemate.

When Sisyphus has taken his place, their meeting begins. They all know what they’re here for. “Hades,” Megaera says, and faces harden around the room.

“Bring him down, we can bring down the power system,” Hecate smiles.

“Bring down the _Wall_ ,” Eris adds. “That’s what I’d like to see.”

“So, I think we all agree that’s our number one priority,” Sisyphus says. “Now, how do we do it?”

Various ideas are debated. In the street, perhaps, or when he’s inspecting the Wall? No, too much exposure, too much security. They need somewhere isolated, somewhere they can get him properly alone. It’s Hypnos who suggests breaking into his bedroom, late at night.

Tisiphone looks sceptical. “Have you seen that dog of his?” she asks. “That thing’s as big as a small horse.”

“I got a gun,” Thanatos says with a shrug.

So how do they get _in_?

“I can help you there,” pipes up a voice who hasn’t spoken yet.

Eurydice notices all the faces around the table are wary as they turn to Hermes. “And how will you do that?” Alecto asks, her tone laced with suspicion.

“I have my ways.”

“I don’t trust him,” Eris says firmly.

“Neither do I,” Tisiphone mutters.

Hermes looks slightly exasperated. “Do you want to get in there or not? Your current methods aren’t very-”

He’s interrupted by the door slamming open.

Fear clutches at Eurydice’s heart. Here are the police, come to arrest them. She’s going to spend the rest of her life in jail. She can feel panic rising in her.

Then the figure steps into the light and she relaxes a little. Pale skin, dark red hair, big kohl-rimmed eyes; Persephone. Then confusion – what is she doing here?

Her fears come rushing back as she realizes the police don’t have to be the ones to catch them in the act.

The room is silent as the grave. Persephone steps forward, comes to the table between Hermes and Megaera, and lays something down.

It’s a key, a small one. Perhaps one to be used on an inside door.

Persephone smirks around at them. “So I hear you wanna break into Hades’ house?”

/

By the time morning comes, everything is settled.

Two days from now, a group will break into Hades’ house and kill him. One of Hades’ security men owes Eris a favour; he’ll let them in through the gate. They’ll meet Persephone in the rose garden, and she’ll let them into the house. The key is a token of goodwill; she has a spare she can give Hades. He’ll never know it was missing, and they can slip in and kill him.

Alecto wraps up the meeting, yawning behind her hand, and they go their separate ways. Out in the quiet of the early dawn, Eurydice finds herself standing next to Persephone as they look up at the black night’s sky.

“Why?” she asks, very, very quietly.

Persephone doesn’t need to ask what she means. She looks down at her feet and murmurs, “Sometimes even love comes second to justice.”

Eurydice looks across at her. “You do love him, then?”

When Persephone looks up, her eyes are dark and haunted. “I did,” she says, “Once.”

/

The day comes, and Eurydice doesn’t feel prepared. She managed to sleep last night after a few hours of fitful turning and thinking, but she doesn’t feel rested. Her hands shake slightly at breakfast; her heart feels like its shivering in anticipation, but not in a good way. They have to wait the whole day until early evening, when they’re springing their plan, and the waiting makes her feel sick.

The others, in contrast, when they gather, appear perfectly calm. Megaera looks bored; Hecate and Alecto exchange vicious smiles; Eris flicks a knife from her hand to the wall with lazy ease; Thanatos smokes and relaxes his body against the corner of the house they wait by. Tisiphone has a secretive smile on her face that makes Eurydice nervous and comforted at the same time.

They wait by the house until they see Sisyphus and Hypnos in the distance, making their way towards the town jail. “That’s our cue,” Eris says, digging her knife out of the wall, and they start in the opposite direction, towards Hades’ compound.

Sisyphus and Hypnos are staging a break-in, hopefully a successful one, to liberate Tantalus and Tityos – old friends of theirs, apparently – who will help them start a riot down in the work area by the Wall. The crowd of workers have been primed for action, so it shouldn’t be too hard. The night crew have always hated Hades the most. Meanwhile, they will make their way to Hades’ house, get in, and do the deed.

It sounds so simple in her head, and she’s surrounded by so many fearsome people, but Eurydice is still afraid.

The high wire fence around Hades’ home rears up before them out of the twilight, and Eurydice takes a deep breath. Her palms are sweating so much she has to wipe them off on her skirt.

Eris makes them duck down behind a wall when they get near, and she goes on ahead. A dark figure comes towards her on the other side of the fence, and they talk for a few moments before she waves them forward. The figure, a man in thick coat and a bowler hat, is unlocking the gate for them. “Debt settled?” he asks as he opens it.

Eris motions them through. “It’ll be settled once we’re out and that fucker’s dead, Minos,” she growls, giving the other man a glare.

“Right you are.” He hangs the chain and padlock on the wire links, not relocking the gate. “In case you need to make a speedy exit,” he shrugs.

Hecate laughs. “Now why are you a cop and not a criminal?”

“There a difference in this town?” he says, flashing a wide, white grin.

“Come on,” Alecto snaps, and they’re moving again.

They go around the side of the big house. It’s a huge, pseudo-Georgian style monstrosity in garish red and white, the colours softened a little by the low light. Eurydice remembers what happened here before, and tries not to look up at it.

At the side of the house there’s a rose garden, and in the garden Persephone is waiting. Her face is grim. “He’s in the bedroom,” she says, her voice stiff, and she opens the side door for them. She doesn’t say anything else, and none of them talk to her; they just pass her by. Eurydice is last, and she glances back. Persephone’s eyes meet hers. Maybe it’s sacrifice, Eurydice thinks. A husband for a husband. But she barely knows Persephone; maybe it’s more than that. She turns away.

They creep through the house, as quiet as they can. It’s a short trip; down one corridor, up a flight of stairs, a left turn into the main corridor. It’s all dark wood and thick Persian carpets, nondescript art on the walls and a huge vase, probably Ming, in the alcove at the top of the staircase. Hades’ door is mahogany, the handle inlaid with pearl. Alecto is the one who turns it.

Eurydice doesn’t know what she expects. She doesn’t expect them to all file in, silently, and stand in a group facing the man across the room. She doesn’t expect him not to react, and she doesn’t expect anyone else to stand motionless, either.

Hades is leaning against the window seat, smartly dressed in suit and tie, smoking a cigar. He takes a slow drag and exhales heavily. “So it comes to this at last,” he says darkly, his heavy voice rumbling in the enclosed space. “I should’ve known, I guess.” He looks up, inspecting each one of them in turn. “Eris the ring leader, instigator of strife, with your Furies behind you. Yeah, I should’ve seen that one coming. Hecate the witch and Thanatos death-dealer too, all appropriate.” His eyes land on Eurydice and he motions with his cigar. “Why’d you bring the little bird, Eris? She ain’t a wolf like the rest of you.”

“Maybe she’s learning to be one,” Eris says, her voice strangely quiet.

Eurydice thinks she sees, now. They’ve all been held under the sway of this man for so long, been his puppets and his pawns for all their lives. Their actions here will change everything they know.

Thanatos lifts his gun. “Death-dealer, you said?” He removes the ever present cigarette from his mouth and blows out a cloud of smoke. “Perhaps this’ll be appropriate, then.”

“So sorry to disappoint,” Hades says, stubbing out his cigar in an ashtray on the dresser by his left hand. “I didn’t get to be the King o’ Hadestown by being easy to catch, y’know.”

And then he appears to fall backwards, the surprised and misaimed shot from Thanatos flying wide over his head as he goes. He disappears out of the window and they hear him hit something, too soon for the ground. They rush forward.

Hades has rolled down the steep roof of the back porch and is hanging on with one hand to the gutter. As they watch, his fingers release and they hear him grunt as he hits the ground. “Let’s go,” Eris snaps, her voice dark with anger, and they run to the door.

He’s only just made it to the gate when they get outside. He’s yelling at someone – not the man who let them in, Eurydice thinks – but he pulls the gate open angrily and darts off into the road when he sees them coming. They follow, and when Eurydice hears footsteps running to catch up she doesn’t have to look around to know who’s joining them.

There’s the sound of shouts and chanting coming from the square – it looks like the riot worked. They follow Hades’ swiftly retreating back past the jail, where the door swings open, half off its hinges.

It’s only a street away from the square that Hades realizes his mistake – and by then it’s too late. Hands are grabbing at him, a whole mob, yelling and screaming as their oppressor is suddenly, miraculously, delivered into their hands. People drag him forward and at the front of their group, Eris slows. “Looks like they won’t need us anymore,” she says, raising her eyebrows.

From behind, Persephone pushes forward. The others stand aside, the crowd parts for her respectfully – and Eurydice follows.

They drag Hades into the town square, everyone yelling and shouting. A cheer goes up when Persephone and Eurydice emerge from the crowd. Eurydice can’t tell what she looks like to the crowd; a vicious avenger? A woman observing justice being done?

Persephone, on the other hand, looks like she’s in pain, but there’s firmness in her eyes. Hades looks up at her for a moment as if he expects her to run forward, help him; but when she doesn’t move his shoulders slump. Eurydice thinks this is the moment he’s finally given up.

She’s wrong.

His head darts to the side and he jerks suddenly, freeing himself from his captors enough to grab a pistol from the belt of a man nearby. Someone screams; he raises the gun. He aims it, straight at Eurydice, an expression of hatred twisting his face, and she realizes _she’s_ the one he thinks started this.

It seems almost surreal, but she realizes in that moment that yes, actually, she did start this.

As he pulls the trigger someone jumps forward, knocking off his aim. A split second later she hears a gasp beside her, and then someone – she thinks it’s Tisiphone – screams.

She looks to her left. Persephone is bent over slightly, a hand at her stomach. She hears Hades yell, sounding like a wounded animal; and then two more gunshots, and she doesn’t need to look round to know he’s been shot dead.

She stumbles to Persephone’s side as she sinks onto the dirt ground. Blood is seeping fast through her fingers, staining her green dress. She takes fast, shaky breaths as Eurydice pulls her into her arms.

People are gathering around, shouting, crying, screaming; Eurydice hears none of it. She can only stare, transfixed, into Persephone’s eyes as she coughs, a spot of blood appearing at the side of her mouth. “Well,” she rasps, “I always did like drama.”

Eurydice shakes her head, opens her mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. She realizes she’s crying, tears streaming down her face like they never have before.

“I don’t think,” Persephone says, her breath becoming shorter, “No, you didn’t meet my daughter. But Eurydice-” another cough, “you’re a good woman. Take care of my girl. Please.”

Eurydice nods numbly, forces out, “What’s her name?”

“Melinoe,” Persephone gasps, “My poor baby. My baby.” She shuts her eyes.

“I’ll look after her,” Eurydice promises, “Nothing bad will happen to her, she’ll be great, anything she wants she’ll have I promise-”

Persephone gently nods her head and Eurydice falls silent. “That’s all I need to know.” She opens her eyes and looks heavenward. “It’ll be different,” she whispers, almost silent, “There won’t be no hardship, no poverty, not where I’m going. And I’ll find him again, and this time…it’ll be different.” She exhales, once, slowly, and her eyelids flicker. She lets out one more breath, but then draws no more air in.

Eurydice bends her head and cries, silently.

/

“Laid off today,” Tisiphone announces as she comes through the door. “Elysium’s closing down.”

“Everything’s closing down,” Megaera grumbles from the couch. “There ain’t even enough business to keep the crooks in the black.”

If there is any better summary of post-Hades Hadestown, Eurydice hasn’t heard it yet. Removing their dictator hasn’t opened up any job opportunities; in fact, without the Wall, there’s pretty well no work at all.

It’s still better, Eurydice thinks. Having no work at all is better than pointless work.

She chops a small onion while Tisiphone sits down next to Megaera, and they begin complaining. When everything started to go downhill they all moved into Tisiphone’s place; now Tisiphone’s out of work, too, things don’t look good for the future.

Next to her, sitting on a high stool, Melinoe is playing with her dolls, nattering away to herself as she makes one of them move. She’s a sweet child, with her father’s dark eyes and her mother’s red hair, and sometimes a hint of Persephone’s fire. A troubled child, too, Eurydice can see it in her eyes. But she’s a troubled woman, and together, perhaps they can make it work.

After a subdued dinner, she tucks Melinoe into bed and goes to bed herself. They share a room, since there’s not much space.

It seems like Eurydice lies all night thinking about the bag under her bed, stuffed full of the few possessions she and Melinoe will need on the road. She packed it days ago, but she’s been having trouble making up her mind.

Come morning, though, her decision is made.

The atmosphere in the kitchen is tense, and Eurydice can tell the three sisters had an argument last night. They need the room she and Melinoe are sharing back; she can’t imagine what will happen if the three of them are forced to continue sharing one bedroom.

She doesn’t make her announcement until breakfast is finished and they’re washing the plates. She tells Alecto first, in an undertone as she hands her wet dishes to dry, and she doesn’t look surprised. “If I were you, I would’ve left already,” she shrugs, and the other two seem of a similar mind.

They scrape together what food they can to see them off on the journey. Little Melinoe has trouble understanding where they’re going at first, but brightens when Eurydice tells her they’re going on an adventure. The child has a streak of wanderlust already, it seems.

The three sisters wave goodbye from the porch, and even Megaera is smiling sadly. Eurydice trudges away through the dirt, waves to them, and thinks she’ll probably never meet them again. Sad, really, after all they’ve seen together.

The gate has been thrown open, not locked up like it was in Hades’ time. The gatekeeper is still there, though; Charon, a wizened old man, blind as a bat, and not really anyone’s first choice for the position. He has almost supernatural hearing, though, so when they approach he stands and calls a greeting. “Leaving?” he asks.

“Yes,” Eurydice says simply.

“You’re not the first and you’ll not be the last.” Charon tips his hat in her general direction and sits back down on his stool. “Not much for me to do, anymore, so I’ll let you be on your way.”

“Thank you,” Eurydice nods her head; even though he can’t see it, it feels like the right thing to do. Then she and Melinoe walk on, out onto the winding road that leads away from Hadestown over the ridge and into the dell where the train station sits, usually completely deserted. As they cross the ridge and start on the gentle downward slope, they can see activity; many people are leaving Hadestown, now, and that’s reflected here.

She hears footsteps on the road beside her and looks around. A familiar figure has stepped out from underneath the scrubby cover of the trees that grow on either side of the road, and is coming toward her. “You’re back,” she says simply. She releases Melinoe’s hand and pulls the girl around to her other side, laying her other hand on her shoulder protectively.

Hermes falls into step beside her, taking Melinoe’s previous place. “I go here and there,” he says cryptically.

“No one in Hadestown seems to trust you.”

“Not wise to trust people in Hadestown.”

“I did.”

“Did it get you what you wanted?”

Eurydice doesn’t answer. She doesn’t know the answer.

“I’m alive,” she says eventually.

“I suppose that’s a form of optimism,” Hermes says drily.

“What do you want?” Eurydice asks him.

“To help an old friend.” When she raises a questioning eyebrow at him, he continues, “Go west. There’s a train headed that way in the next hour.”

“West?”

“West, indeed.”

“Why?”

“I think you and I both know.”

“An old friend,” Eurydice says slowly.

“Well, I say old. I suppose you might call him a recently made acquaintance.”

She stops and turns suspicious eyes on him. “But _why_?”

He shrugs. “Why what?”

“Why do you want to help him?”

“Because I failed him before.”

“You got him here.”

“And he didn’t get you.”

Eurydice looks away. “That was…that wasn’t your fault.”

Hermes puts a hand on her shoulder and squeezes, an affectionate smile on his face. “I’ll decide where I lay the blame, sister. Settle my own accounts, so to speak. Now, get going. Train waits for no one.”

She looks at him a moment longer, then turns away. Before she’s gone more than a few steps, she turns back. “Could you really have got us into Hades’ house?” she asks.

He makes a vague gesture with one hand. “Probably. Persephone and Eris worked it out on their own, though, didn’t they?”

She nods. “You heard what happened?”

The slight smile slips from his face. “Yeah, I heard.” Then he straightens his shoulders and gives her a little wave. “Go well, sister.”

“Don’t get yourself killed up there,” Eurydice says, motioning back up the hill. He smiles.

She moves her hand from Melinoe’s shoulder and takes her hand, removing it from where the girl had been clutching at her skirts. “Come on, missy,” she says, voice bright. “The adventure starts now.”

Melinoe’s smile is blinding. She links their hands, hers so small in comparison even to Eurydice’s, which she has always considered tiny. Together they walk away towards the train station, hand in hand, Eurydice’s knapsack hitched high on her shoulder.

A rumble of thunder cuts through the quiet of the afternoon. Dark clouds swirl overhead, a deep bruised purple painted across the sky. Without ceremony the heavens open, rain pouring thick and heavy.

A fork of lightning flashes, way, way up above.  

 

 

 

 


End file.
